Soccer World Cup 2026: Morocco denounces FIFA’s rating

The Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) disputes the rating system and the technical criteria used by FIFA for the selection of the host country for the 2026 soccer World Cup, worrying about the “fairness” of the process, in a letter whose Agence France-Presse had a copy on Monday.

“We strongly oppose that the scoring system be maintained in the state […] and consider that any action in this sense would be unfair”, says this letter sent by the president of the Moroccan federation, Fouzi Lekjaa, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino.

The scoring system, which “adds new technical criteria that did not appear in the prescriptions originally transmitted by FIFA”, was transmitted “on March 14 at 16:18, ie less than 24 hours before the filing of the technical file of the Moroccan application “and” just over 48 hours before the filing deadline of 16 March at 17:00 “, according to this letter.

This system “imposes new rules” and modifies “hotel gauges”, introduces a “minimum size for host cities”, a “sustainability risk” for stadiums, a minimum capacity for airports and a maximum distance between the airport and the host city, according to the document dated 25 March.

With its “African bid”, Morocco hopes to win the organization of the 2026 World Cup, the first of 48 teams, against the joint bid of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

For its fifth campaign, the kingdom has shortlisted 12 host cities and ultimately plans 12 stadiums, including 5 existing to modernize and three ultramodern to build. The trio US-Canada-Mexico relies on 23 preselected cities (including 4 Canadian, including Montreal, and 3 Mexican) for 16 final candidate cities with stadiums with an average capacity of 68 000 places, “already constructed and operational “.